Two For The Price Of One
by SeaSpectre160
Summary: A swimmer turned fish monster. A thief turned Legend. What could these two men possibly have in common? And is it possible to save them both?
1. Chapter 1

**And now for something new!**

 **To be honest, I was going to wait a bit before posting this, but I hit a writer's block on 'The Witch and the Heir to the Demon', and I need to bulk up my crossover word count on Twisting the Hellmouth to get 'Corruption' out of quarantine (they have strict rules about the crossover to non-crossover ratio on that site) before it gets deleted by the mods, so here it is, now! Only this chapter and the next are complete (hence me wanting to wait), so while Chapter 2 will be posted tomorrow, you will just have to wait for Chapter 3, as I have two other incomplete works on my plate: 'Reawakening' and 'The Cold Factor'.**

 **This is a new 'Destiny' fix-it, set after 'Legends of Tomorrow' 2x17 'Aruba' and Flash 3x23 'Finish Line', but canon-divergent from the end of 'Finish Line' – for whatever reason, Barry does not have to go into the Speed Force Prison at the end. And since I started writing this before the 2017/2018 season started, this fic is not canon to the events of those seasons.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or any of its characters. It belongs to Mutant Enemy Productions. I also do not own 'The Flash' or 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' or any of their characters. They belong to Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television.**

 **WORD COUNT: 1819**

* * *

"BARRY!"

The Fastest Man Alive raced into the Cortex as quickly as he could when he heard Cisco's shout. The two women standing there in the middle of the room didn't appear to be dangerous, although in their line of work, that meant very little. Both were short and slim, one blonde and one redheaded. They also had both their hands up as if they had a gun trained on them.

"We come in peace!" the redhead squeaked.

"Who are you?!" Cisco demanded, "And how the frak did you get in here?!"

"We're just visiting from another reality," the blonde said calmly, "We need the help of someone in this world to save someone from ours."

"Who?" Barry asked, not completely letting his guard down but letting some concern show through.

"Well, in our reality, his name is Gage Petronzi, but we've been searching through a couple different realities, and we've found that the names aren't always the same." She cocked her head to the side. "Huh. Usually this is the part where people start freaking out about other realities. God knows I would be."

Cisco scoffed. "Please. I can open breaches to other Earths any time I want. This ain't our first multiverse rodeo."

"Okay, three questions," Barry asked, "One: Who are you? Two: Why do you need this Petronzi guy's help? And three: Why do you have to search through multiple Earths to find him?"

"Okay, the first one is an easy one. My name is Buffy Summers, and this is Willow Rosenberg. We're basically in the demon-hunting profession. As for the answers to your other questions…"

"It's sort of complicated," the redhead, Rosenberg, admitted, digging into her bag and pulling out a thin hardcover book – a school yearbook, emblazoned with the words 'Sunnydale High School Class of 1998' – and began flipping through it.

"Nearly twenty years ago, four guys on our high school swim team were exposed to this… experimental steroid that sorta turned them into fish monsters." Summers winced even as she said it, probably acknowledging how crazy it sounded. "They wound up escaping into the ocean, and were recently re-captured. Willow here is a very powerful Wicca, and she's figured out a way to turn them back into humans. Now, the basic ritual just requires a sample of their blood, untainted by the freaky crap that transformed them in the first place, so for that, all we'd need is to, like, cut the person's finger and just collect a little blood from that. _But_ , because the transformation had a side-effect of leaving their skin behind-"

"Ew…" Cisco interrupted.

"Hey, try having to _watch_ it happen. _Not_ pleasant. Anyway, the ritual can be done on any human who's been turned into _almost_ anything non-human, but the problem is, if we were to do the bare minimum, with just the blood, the guys would still be skinless when we changed them back, which would obviously result in them dying soon after."

"And also 'Ew'," Rosenberg added helpfully, still looking through the book.

"Exactly. So we kinda need to find someone with the same DNA and not only get a blood sample from them, but also have them present during the ritual in order to fully restore the boys. Since none of them have identical twins, we've been searching other realities for their doppelgängers."

"We'll bring him back home when we're done," Rosenberg insisted, holding the open yearbook out to Barry now that she'd found the page she'd been searching for, "We've already restored, Dodd, Cameron, and Sean, but we're still looking for Gage's doppelgänger."

Barry took the book and scanned the open page (labelled 'Obituaries/Missing' and disturbingly large for a high school yearbook) until he found Gage Petronzi's name and the picture above it. His eyes widened as he took in a much younger version of a very familiar face, then dimmed as he remembered the fate of the man in question. "I knew this guy's doppelgänger," he said, "But I'm afraid he won't be able to help. His name was Leonard Snart, and he's been dead for a year. And there's no body to be found, from what I know."

Both women's faces fell. "B-But…" Rosenberg stammered, "That doesn't make any sense! I- I- I set the spell to only take us to realities where he has a living doppelgänger! We wouldn't _be_ here if he were dead!"

"How did he die?" Summers asked bluntly, "How sure are you that he's dead?"

"According to our friends who were with him, he was holding down a failsafe mechanism on a device they were trying to self-destruct. They insist that no one could have survived the blast."

"Can we check the site ourselves?" Rosenberg all but begged, "Please? All it'll take is a simple spell to confirm it."

Barry winced. "That… might be tough. He and our friends were living on a time-traveling spaceship when it happened. I have no idea where or _when_ it happened."

* * *

"Captain Lance, I have an incoming message from Central City, in the year 2017."

Sara glanced up at the ceiling, a habit they'd all developed when addressing Gideon. "Play it."

 _"_ _Hey, guys."_ The voice of Cisco Ramon filled the galley, where Sara was having breakfast with Ray, Stein, and Amaya. _"Uh… Okay, this isn't so much a distress call as it is that we've got something really,_ _ **really**_ _weird going on. And I'm not talkin' really,_ _ **really**_ _weird from a normal perspective, I'm talkin' really,_ _ **really**_ _weird from even_ _ **our**_ _persp-"_

Barry Allen's voice cut in. _"Cisco, we don't have all day."_

 _"_ _Right. Uh, we've got a couple visitors from another Earth who need a lift in your time ship. It's complicated, and it would be easier if we explained it all in person, but the important thing is that one of them can apparently do some seriously uber-powerful magic, and she has reason to believe that… Leonard Snart may actually be alive. I dunno_ _ **what**_ _that's all about, but you might wanna come check this out."_

Cisco gave the date and time co-ordinates, then the message ended. The four Legends present were stunned silent for several seconds.

Amaya was the first one to snap out of it. "Isn't Leonard Snart Mick's old friend? The one who was recruited by the Legion? The one who _killed_ that future version of Mick?!"

"He changed," Ray insisted, "He started on the path to becoming a good guy even before Rip recruited him along with the rest of us. The Legion of Doom just recruited him from a time before that."

"Indeed," Stein agreed, "The Leonard Snart we came to know was a hero. He even sacrificed his own life to save the rest of us at the Vanishing Point. We cannot allow ourselves to forget that simply because we've been reminded of what he _used_ to be like."

"But now Cisco's saying that, what, he somehow _survived_?"

"That can't be possible," Sara murmured, more than a touch of anger in her voice. "But at the very least, we need to know what the hell the deal is with the people who're saying it is. Gideon, plot a course for Central City, 2017."

* * *

Buffy nearly had to restrain Willow when her best friend saw the time-travelling spaceship appear in the sky and land in the parking lot of the building they'd arrived in. A little bit of talk about this reality had told the witch and the Slayer that they'd landed in a world that was basically like a comic book, and right in the middle of the headquarters of the local superhero. It was one of their luckier landings, she decided, having arrived in front of good guys who were willing and able to help instead of being more inclined to just kill the pair. They'd dealt with _plenty_ of those already on this quest.

Only two people came from out of the ship to meet them: a big, hulking, bald man with a huge gun strapped to his belt, and a blonde woman who was tiny in comparison, but still a bit taller than Buffy herself. The blonde made Buffy wonder if there were Slayers in this reality, because this woman moved like a warrior (it took one to know one). And she was clearly angry.

"Okay, _someone_ had better start explaining," she practically growled when she and her companion were within speaking distance.

"Uh, okay, first introductions," Cisco Ramon suggested timidly, "Sara, Rory, these are dimension-travelers I mentioned, Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg. Buffy, Willow, this is Sara Lance, Captain of the _Waverider_ , and Mick Rory, who… uh… He's part of her crew. And Leonard Snart's best friend."

"What the hell's all this about," Rory growled.

"They have reason to believe that Snart's alive," Barry Allen explained, "Granted, it's because of magic, and nothing we scientists can conform, but…"

"What's the reason?" Lance interrupted.

"We need to find a doppelgänger of someone on our world in order to help him become human again," Buffy explained, "The 'why' is a long story, but the point is, we've been traveling from reality to reality in order to find one, and the spell we've used to do so only takes us to realities where there's a living doppelgänger. And it brought us here, so unless your friend secretly has an identical twin, he's out there, somewhere."

"And I can perform a spell that will narrow down that 'somewhere'," Willow continued, "But it would be best if I were at the place where he supposedly died."

"You want to go to the Vanishing Point," Lance said lowly, "You need a time ship to get there. The real question is: Can we trust you?"

Cisco began to stammer protests, but Barry seemed to be on Lance's side. "The last time someone we didn't know came into our world and asked for our help – _without_ being vouched for by someone we trusted – he turned out to be _Zoom_. Remember him? Remember what he did to us? All I'm saying is, we should be a little more careful about this."

"That's smart," Buffy agreed, "I don't even invite my friends into my home, in case they've been turned into vampires since I've seen them last. And you don't even know us. But I'm telling you, your friend is out there, somewhere, alive. And we're your best chance at finding him and bringing him back."

* * *

 **For those of you who don't know, Wentworth Miller, who plays Leonard Snart, appeared in his first-ever TV role on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' 2x20 'Go Fish' as Gage Petronzi. As you may have guessed by now, the plot of this crossover is based primarily on that fact. As far as the multiverse goes, Gage is Leonard's Earth-32 doppelgänger ('Go Fish' is the 32nd episode overall), but he's several years younger than Leonard, in order to be still in high school in 1998 (although it's not stretch to say that Gage could have been held back in school, given his complete lack of academic work ethic).**

 **And can I just say how glad I am that 'Legends of Tomorrow' has been renewed for a fourth season? Especially since Matt Ryan will be playing Constantine as a series regular? I'm really hoping we'll finally be getting some answers regarding his own show, since NBC cancelled it in the middle of production – they didn't simply decide to not renew it for a second season, they actually stopped production of the first season before it could be finished! And while it's been fun seeing Constantine pop back up every now and then, not hints were dropped about the _huge_ cliffhanger at the end of the final episode, and no real mentions were ever made of Chas, Zed, or Manny (the other leads). So I'm hoping that 'Legends' S4 will fix that.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, so this section is basically a bunch of exposition, explaining the setting a bit more. And just because I forgot to mention last chapter, this fic only takes the events of the seven TV seasons of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' into account, not the comics. And in the overall multiverse, the Buffyverse is set on Earth-32, since 'Go Fish' is the 32nd episode overall.**

 **Now, I haven't written any other chapters to this yet, but I _do_ know where I'm going with this. Right now, my priorities are, in rotating order, 'Reawakening' (a 'Kamen Rider Drive' fanfic), 'The Cold Factor' (a 'Legends of Tomorrow' non-crossover), and this. I will rotate through updating these until they're all done before I start posting any new multi-chapter fics.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or any of its characters. It belongs to Mutant Enemy Productions. I also do not own 'The Flash' or 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' or any of their characters. They belong to Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television.**

 **WORD COUNT: 1732**

* * *

Well, it worked. Buffy and Willow were officially passengers on a time-travelling spaceship. Barry and Cisco had joined them, as well, leaving the city in the hands of their friend Wally. The Slayer and the Witch had already been introduced to the rest of the _Waverider_ 's crew: Professor Stein (a white-haired physicist who reminded Buffy just a little bit of Giles), Ray (a goofy, cheerful scientist), Amaya (another skilled female warrior who seemed to feel like she was the only sane person on board), Nate (a historian), and Jax (chief engineer who, despite being the youngest crew member, seemed to be Capt. Lance's second-in-command).

Willow was now ensconced in the ship's library with Stein and Ray, eagerly discussing the complex physics of time-travel and this 'Vanishing Point' that they were headed to. Buffy had lasted one minute before a headache started forming, so she left them to their science and went off in search of something to eat. Luckily, their quick tour of the ship had passed by the kitchen/cafeteria/whatever, so she was able to find her way there relatively easily.

Nate, Amaya, and Mick were there, all eating lunch at the same table. Mick was in a decidedly glum mood, and Amaya was leaning over with her hand on top of his, making Nate (whose arm was around her waist) pout in an obviously jealous manner. Buffy remembered Cisco saying that Mick was the best friend of Leonard Snart, Gage's doppelgänger who they thought was dead.

She could sort of understand that, as well as Capt. Lance's suspicion. If someone had shown up and told her that Tara, or Anya, or Ms. Calendar had been alive all this time and in need of the Scoobies' help, she'd be devastated by the possibility, but also more than a bit suspicious that it was all part of a convoluted trap.

She wandered over to the cupboards, looking for food, but could only find dishes. There didn't seem to be a single scrap of food in the galley, aside from what the other three were already eating. Oh, wait, she didn't check the fridge yet-

"You need to use the replicator."

Buffy glanced over her shoulder and saw that Amaya had gotten up and was walking over. "Huh?"

Amaya pointed to a section of the wall with a bunch of buttons and an empty counter below it. "The food replicator. It can make any food you want, out of practically nothing."

"Seriously?! That's a thing in this reality?!"

The other woman laughed. "Apparently it will be, some day. I'm actually from 1942, and I said almost the exact same thing, but it turns out that this ship is from the twenty-second century, or even later. So it was new to _everyone_ on board. The taste can be a little off, and most of the crew will bring real food from home on board, but that's kept either in our rooms our in the fridge, so you don't want to be stealing someone else's snacks. Here, let me help you pick something…"

It didn't take them long to get Buffy's salad and smoothie from the replicator and then join Nate back at the table (Mick had left the room while the women were occupied).

"So… what's he like?" Buffy asked as she sat down, "Leonard, I mean."

Nate and Amaya exchanged an uncomfortable look. "Honestly, we are the last two people who should be answering that question," Nate admitted, "We joined this team after Snart died. Or whatever happened to him. We only briefly met a past version of him a couple of times, and _that_ version was actually trying to kill us all."

"It's a long story," Amaya sighed.

"Short version: Snart and Rory were both supervillains who turned hero while on this ship, and not long ago, we were fighting this group that called themselves the 'Legion of Doom'."

" _You_ came up with that name, Natahniel. I don't think they've even heard of it."

"Right. Anyway, they had access to time-travel, as well, and they recruited a past version of Snart, from at least a year before he got on the _Waverider_ , to join them. They told him that he was supposed to join this team and die, and offered him an opportunity to change that…"

"And let me guess: he jumped at the chance," Buffy guessed.

"Yes. It was… very hard on the others, because they all knew him as a friend. We were able to defeat that group and put them all back in their proper places in time, and wipe their memories. Which meant that no one could warn Snart about his fate. We have a duty to keep the timeline stable… Even the parts we wish were different."

Buffy nodded slowly. The 'villain-turned-hero' part of the story didn't bother her; it was something she was familiar with, between Angel, Spike, Anya, Faith, Andrew, and even Willow.

"What was your Snart like?"

Nate asked after a period of awkward silence.

Buffy shrugged. "I didn't really know him all that well, either. His name wasn't Snart, though. It was Gage Petronzi. We went to the same high school, but he was a year ahead of me and one of the star members of the school swim team. Whereas I was… not exactly popular. Juggling my classes with vampire slaying, and keeping the slaying part a secret, wasn't exactly good for my social standing. It didn't help that I… kinda burned the gym down at my old school?"

Nate and Amaya stared at her. "You burned down the gym," Amaya repeated, her tone one of dull shock.

"To kill all the vampires inside!" Buffy protested. "There were a _lot_ of them!" Buffy shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. "I guess I shouldn't tell you the story about how I killed a demon with a stolen shoulder-mounted rocket launcher in the mall, huh?"

"Ooh, I wanna hear that on!" Nate declared excitedly while Amaya's jaw dropped right open, "But… about your not-Snart…?"

"Right. So, the remains of two guys on the swim team had been found recently, and by 'remains', I mean skin, cartilage and absolutely _nothing_ else. The first victim had been the best swimmer on the team, statistically, the second victim was second-best, and Gage was ranked third, so my friends and I figured he would be next. So I started following him around, hoping to spot whatever was killing the boys and kill it before it got him, but he noticed me and acted like a total ass-"

"Well, you _were_ sort of stalking him," Nate pointed out.

"Yeah, point. I told him why I was following him when he confronted me about, but of course he didn't believe me. But then I saved him from a vampire, he connected the dots between his missing friends and what I said about something targeting him, and he went from 'Get the hell away from me' to 'Walk me home?'."

Both time-travellers snorted at that.

"Yeah, it was kinda funny. So my friends and I kept watch on him, but it turned out to do him no good, because we found out the hard way that the swimmers weren't _being eaten_ by a monster, they were _turning into_ monsters. The coach was _so_ obsessed with winning an upcoming meet that he had all the boys exposed to an experimental Russian steroid from the Cold War that mutated them into these man-eating fish-monster things."

Amaya blinked. "And I thought _our_ Earth was strange. But you said you originally came for Snart in order to help Gage?"

"Yeah. The fish-boys escaped into the ocean after killing the coach, but they've recently been re-captured, and we need doppelgängers of them to work this spell that will turn them human again. Hence the dimension-hoppage."

"Well, I really hope you can get Snart back," Nate said, "Our interactions with him…" He motioned at himself and Amaya. "…were anything but pleasant, but it's pretty obvious that the rest of the team _really_ misses him."

* * *

Sara felt her throat tighten as she looked upon the ruins of the Vanishing Point once again. This was where one of the worst twelve hours of her life had begun. Losing Leonard, spending several hours trying to sleep afterwards and utterly failing, then going back home in hopes of having her sister's shoulder to cry on, only to find out that Laurel was dead, too, and that there was nothing that Sara could do to save her.

She didn't really know how she was supposed to feel about all this. These strangers from another dimension (Earth-32, Cisco had said) were offering something that her whole team thought impossible, to bring back the man who'd died to save them – and left no body behind. If Sara had been willing to risk it, she would have insisted on going back to the Vanishing Point as soon as possible to locate Leonard's remains and take them to a time when the Lazarus Pit still existed. To bring him back. But she'd had no hope of finding anything recognisable to throw into the Pit, and she didn't want to condemn him to the same Bloodlust that she'd been cursed with. That was one of the reasons why she'd never tried to do that with Laurel, whose body was in a known location.

They led Summers and Rosenberg to the Oculus Wellspring as soon as they touched down. Nate and Amaya, who never really knew Leonard, excused themselves by volunteering to raid whatever the Legion had left behind from their time there, leaving behind the people who knew and missed him and the ones who were going to bring him back.

Rosenberg had Mick and Summers clear away the rubble from the place where Leonard had been standing, then she drew a circle of runes in red chalk and sat cross-legged with a white candle in front of her. "You guys might want to stand back," she warned, then she struck a match, lit her candle, and started chanting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Happy Birthday to me!**

 **Hi guys, I know it's been a while – almost 2 months – since this was last updated, but as I said in the previous notes, I have three incomplete works that I'm rotating through, and 'The Cold Factor' is _damn_ long – over 10,000 words per chapter. And I'll probably be finishing the fourth chapter of 'Reawakening' before I get back to this. But I'm hoping you'll like this chapter enough to consider it worth the wait.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or any of its characters. It belongs to Mutant Enemy Productions. I also do not own 'The Flash' or 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' or any of their characters. They belong to Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television.**

 **WORD COUNT: 2069**

* * *

Willow was glad she'd brought her bag of magic supplies with her on this little inter-dimensional jaunt. She hadn't been planning on doing this type of spell, but in their line of work, not being prepared for anything could get you dead (and sometimes it still wasn't enough). She had all the ingredients necessary for this spell.

She'd had the scientists on the _Waverider_ take her through everything they knew about the Oculus and what happened in the explosion, and she had a pretty good idea of what had happened to Leonard Snart. The explosion had blasted apart pretty much anything organic, down to a cellular level, and Willow was performing a spell that would pull him back together. Using a sample of anything with DNA, it would summon every living cell belonging to a person and put them back where they belonged. Normally, it could only be used with demons whose cells took much longer to die, but the _Waverider_ 's medical technology and nature of the Vanishing Point's existence outside of time were lending them an advantage there.

The sample could only be used if the cells were still living, so hairs and such off clothing, toothbrushes, etc. would be useless by now. But the _awesome_ time machine (she was still giddy about the conversation she'd had with their Artificial Intelligence) had the ability to recreate whole body parts, meaning blood and tissue that identical to that of the actual person. Gideon had already recreated Leonard Snart's right hand, once, and his DNA had never been deleted from her system. And due to time not passing in the Vanishing Point, that meant all of Snart's blasted-apart cells were still technically 'alive' and summon-able.

After lighting her candle, Willow began her plea to the best goddess she could think of for this job. _"Goddess Airmed, Mistress of Healing and Resurrection, aid this charm,"_ she incanted in Ancient Gaelic, _"Restore that which has been lost. Return body, mind, and spirit to their natural state. Airmed, Daughter of Dian Checht, I beseech thee…"_

Taking her vial of Gideon-supplied blood, she reached over to the centre of the circle she'd created and poured its contents onto the stone floor.

 _"Let this life-blood be your guide, let it lead you to the flesh, blood, and bone of this man."_

Willow repeated the first part of the supplication, then waited silently. She'd done her part. Now she could only wait.

* * *

Magic weirded Mick out, to be completely honest (something he usually wasn't). He wasn't like Haircut or the Professor, who kept insisting that there was some kind of complicated science behind every weird thing they couldn't explain, but it still put him on edge. But if this redhead could really use magic to bring Lenny back, he'd do whatever the fuck she wanted to help her get it done. Even if he had no idea why she needed him to bring a blanket. The blood, he could sort of understand – witchcraft in movies was big on blood – but what the hell was the blanket supposed to do?

He didn't say anything when Sabrina started doing her chanty thing, just watched and tried not to let himself hope it would work. After all that shit with the Legion and Past Snart, he wasn't ready to get his hopes up just yet.

Of course, he'd also agreed to help the witch in whatever way he could. His own thoughts and actions were confusing the hell out of him.

The chanting-and-dumping-blood-on-the-magic-circle-thingy part didn't take long. Less than a minute, really. Then Sabrina got really quiet and just stared at the circle.

No one said anything for a bit. "Does this mean it didn't work?" Red asked, looking more worried for Lenny than a hero-type should.

"Give it a minute," Sabrina murmured, "Leonard's cells have been scattered throughout this whole place. The spell will pull each and every one to the centre of the circle and basically put him back together. It's a complex process that doesn't exactly happen in five seconds." She looked up at Mick. "Get ready with that blanket, by the way. This spell is only going to bring _him_ back. It doesn't do _anything_ for the clothes he was wearing."

Haircut sputtered and flushed red at that, and now Mick was _very_ glad that Sabrina'd thought of the blanket. Lenny didn't even like taking his shirt off in front of Mick and Lisa. He could barely handle prison shower times. He'd _flip_ if the whole crew, the Flash, his geek sidekick, and a couple of strangers saw _everything_.

The red circle thingy started glowing, and that distracted everyone from what Sabrina'd just said. Some sort of shapes started forming over it, hovering in mid-air and growing outward. It took Mick a couple seconds to realise they were bones, and they were forming what looked like a whole skeleton. Some pinkish-coloured stuff he guessed was muscle or something started getting added to it, and Mick moved closer with the blanket.

"Not yet," Sabrina told him, "I'll tell you when it's safe."

Mick grunted. He didn't like taking orders, _especially_ not from people he didn't know, but it looked like this chick was actually bringing Lenny back, so obviously she knew what she was doing. And Mick did listen when Haircut or the Professor told him he needed to do something because of science (things like 'Push that button there', 'Pour this on top of that', and 'For the love of God, you do _not_ wanna touch that thing if you like breathing!'). Because he knew they knew what they were doing. So Sabrina'd get about the same amount of courtesy, here.

More muscle and flesh covered the bones, and they could even see the organs being rebuilt. Then Sabrina gave Mick the go-ahead, and the pyro lifted up the blanket to block Lenny from view before the skin formed – although most of them were looking away by that point, anyway. Ponytail looked like he was going to puke.

Mick couldn't see through the blanket, but he knew it was over when the circle thingy stopped glowing, and Mick heard a _thud_ on the other side. He lowered the blanket low enough to see a face he never thought he'd see again.

Leonard Snart was lying crumpled in front of the ruins of the Oculus, alive and whole again. Mick froze, still not sure if it was real or all one _really_ big hallucination. Again.

Then the screaming started.

* * *

"Shut it down." Leonard Snart glared at the angry control freak who actually dared to give _him_ an _order_. "Shut! It! DOWN!"

Leonard just gave him a defiant look. "There are _no_ strings on _me_ ," he snarled. He got one last look at Druce's face before the high-pitched whine from the Oculus reached its peak, then there was a loud _boom_ , and it all went blue.

Then came the pain.

 _Everything_ was pain. It lasted maybe a few seconds, maybe for several centuries. He had no sense of time, no sense of being, just _pain_.

And just as abruptly as it started, it ended. Mostly. The pain was still there, but then there was also air in his lungs (he actually _had_ lungs again, and a chest, and everything) and something solid beneath his feet, and he was cold. And someone was screaming.

And then that something solid wasn't just under his feet. It was pressing up against the entire right side of his body. Probably had something to do with the fact that his limbs felt like jelly.

Something was touching his other side, now, and he flinched at the sudden contact.

"Lenny?"

He must be hallucinating. There was no _way_ he was hearing Mick's voice.

"Snart, can ya hear me?" A pause, then: "Boss!"

"He's alive," another voice – this one completely unfamiliar – said, "But I literally just put him back together, cell by cell. His body's still reacting to being blasted apart in the first place."

It was then that he realised the person screaming was him.

He felt a pressure on his back and under his knees – strong arms lifting him up and cradling him against a warm chest. "S'okay, Boss," Mick's voice said, much closer now, "It's gonna be okay."

* * *

Buffy hung back in the doorway of the _Waverider_ 's infirmary – sorry, Med Bay – as Rory set Snart down on the closest bed, still wrapped in the blanket. Capt. Lance gently pulled one arm out from under the blanket and attached some sort of cuff, attached to the wall by a glowy blue tube, like some sort of IV. Snart was still shaking and yelling in pain, but his screams slowly faded to moans, then to whimpers, and then silenced altogether. Buffy guessed he'd been given a sedative.

She rarely allowed herself to think about all those she hadn't been able to save. In a town like Sunnydale, there were just too many vampires and other demons for her to be able to save everyone. Giles had tried to assure her that every life she did save mattered, and that it was best to remember them when things got tough. But she remembered some of the people that she lost, especially if she'd actually known them. Cassie's death still cut deep. But she remembered Gage, who'd trusted her to protect him and wound up lost anyway, though not to death or a supernatural monster – even if a monster of the human variety was ultimately to blame.

Leonard Snart didn't look _exactly_ like Gage, which was to be expected, since he was more than twice as old as Gage had been when the swim team incident happened. His hair had quite a bit of silver in it, cut close but not completely shorn off, like Gage had worn his. And even when he was screaming in pain, he had a hard face that spoke to years of hardship.

Or maybe the scars visible on his arm were influencing her opinion there. One of their Slayers, Jenna, was activated during the final battle in Sunnydale, right when her father was in the middle of beating her. She'd put him in the hospital, and the gang had found her after combing through news and legal notices for possible newbie Slayer incidents around the day of the battle and the days after. Jenna'd had lots of tiny burn scars on her back, chest, arms, and far more intimate areas that had most of the Scoobies wanting to march into her father's hospital room and kill him right in his bed.

Snart had scars just like Jenna's. And that was just what Buffy could see of one arm. Somehow, despite the fact that she faced monsters out of nightmares – sometimes _literally_ out of people's nightmares – it was the horrors that humans could inflict on each other that chilled her the most.

Gideon was running some scans on him, and after what seemed like an eternity, she gave her report: "Mister Snart appears to be in near perfect health. The only flaw is that his nervous system is reacting as if he is in severe pain."

"He _is_ in severe pain," Jax interrupted, "Or did you not hear the screaming?"

"I _did_ , Mister Jackson." For a super-computer, Gideon sounded irritated in a very human way. "What I mean is that his nervous system is reacting despite a complete lack of stimulus that would cause such pain. However, I do not believe that this condition is permanent. I shall monitor his condition and keep him sedated for now."

Capt. Lance nodded. "Thanks, Gideon. Let me know if anything changes." She was staring down at Snart, her face softer than Buffy had seen of her so far, and reached out, as if to touch his face. Her hand froze less than an inch from his skin, shaking.

It was then that Buffy realised that there was a _lot_ more to their story that she hadn't been told.

* * *

 **Airmed is a Celtic goddess associated with healing and resurrection, according to Wikipedia, which does not have a whole lot of info about her, so if any experts on Celtic mythology think she's not a good fit for this, I'm sorry.**

 **In the BtVS finale 'Chosen', we see a montage of newly-activated Slayers, including a girl played by Jenna Edwards, credited simply as 'Trailer Girl', who catches the arm of someone who was about to hit her – and gives them a totally awesome death glare that just _screams_ "Not anymore". This is the Slayer that Buffy is thinking of in that last scene.**


	4. Chapter 4

**I was expecting to get the next chapter of 'Reawakening' done first, but I worked on this when I got stuck on that, and this just got done first. So sorry for the long wait! I'll be putting 'Reawakening' on hiatus after I finally get the fourth chapter up, so once 'The Cold Factor' is done, this will be my primary focus. Of course, I may make a few updates before that, for the same reason this chapter came early.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or any of its characters. It belongs to Mutant Enemy Productions. I also do not own 'The Flash' or 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' or any of their characters. They belong to Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television.**

 **WORD COUNT: 1703**

* * *

Sara felt like she was dreaming. Leonard couldn't _really_ be lying there, right in front of her. She'd left him at the Oculus, watched the whole place blow up, and cried herself to sleep while hugging the parka he'd left on the ship. Encountering the past version of him was different; it was due to time travel, and that had long since become something she could actually wrap her head around. But this was _their_ Leonard.

Even after taking his arm and putting the IV cuff on it, she was _so_ tempted to reach out and touch him again, just to check that he was really there. Actually, she did reach towards him, but stopped just short of actual contact, remembering that there were other people with her in the Med Bay.

So she cleared her throat and slipped back into Captain Mode. "Mick, go back to Leonard's quarters and get him a full set of clothes to wear. And if you could help get him into them-"

"Uh-uh," Mick immediately disagreed, "He'd be more freaked out waking up and finding out someone had changed his clothes when he was asleep. That'll have to wait 'til he's awake."

Since Mick had known Leonard the longest by far, and therefore knew him best, Sara agreed. "Okay. Just get the clothes, then."

Mick left after that, and so did most of the others. Summers and Rosenberg cleared out first, followed by Nate and Amaya. Ray, Jax, and Martin remained a bit longer, all looking almost as stunned as she felt over this whole situation. But then they left, too, after Mick briefly returned with a change of clothes for Leonard and then herded them all out of the room.

That just left Sara alone with a sleeping Leonard. She sort of hovered awkwardly until Gideon primly pointed out that she _could_ just sit down, if she wanted.

So Sara was rather embarrassed as she took a seat next to Leonard's bed, remembering that she wasn't _exactly_ alone – taking Gideon into account, you were, in fact, _never_ alone on this ship.

He was still wrapped up in that blanket, only his head and neck exposed on one side, and his bare feet sticking out at the other end. Sara had tucked his arm back under the blanket, so the bright blue tube just disappeared under the grey fabric. A faint expression of pain still showed on his face, despite the copious amount of painkillers and sedatives Gideon was pumping into his system. Sara was never going to forget the sound of his screams for as long as she lived. She had seen and felt and inflicted so much pain on others throughout her time on the _Amazo_ and with the League, but she'd never heard screaming like that.

"You've really got us scared, you know," she said softly, her voice seeming to echo in the emptiness of the sealed Med Bay, "We've already lost you once. We've just had a _really_ bad encounter with your past self, even if you'll never remember it. I don't think we can take losing you again." She swallowed. "So you'd better not die on us again. You're tougher than that, Snart. You survived your father, you survived prison, you survived nearly freezing to death in the engine room with me, and you survived freezing your own hand off and charging into the home base of some of the deadliest people on the planet. So I'm expecting better from you, Leonard."

After a moment of hesitation, then deciding that only Gideon would know, Sara reached over and slipped her hand under the blankets and gripped Leonard's own hand. It was surprisingly warm, for someone who'd just been brought back from the dead (or as close to dead as you could get, in the Vanishing Point).

"If I didn't know you at all, I'd consider making it an order. But I _do_ know you, so I'll just have to settle for _begging_ you to come back to us." She squeezed his fingers, and found herself surprised at her own disappointment that he – in his drugged, unconscious state – didn't squeeze back. "Please, Leonard. _Please_ don't leave us again."

* * *

The first thing Willow did, after channelling a significant amount of magical energy to literally put a whole man back together cell by cell, was take a nap. She was given one of the few spare rooms on the ship – she was too tired to pay attention to who it previously belonged to – and was dead to the world for a good couple of hours or so within seconds of her head hitting the pillow.

After she woke up, she asked Gideon where everyone else was. Apparently, Mick and Amaya were showing Buffy the training room, Capt. Lance was still in the Med Bay, and Jax was working on some repairs, while the rest of the crew was in the galley, having supper. Deciding that she was rather hungry herself, she decided to join them.

On her way there, she also asked for an update on Leonard Snart. Gideon reported that the odd activity in the nervous system of man in question had died down, although it was not completely gone yet. She estimated that he should be back to normal by morning, ship time. She should actually be able to take him off the sedatives in an hour or two, although he'd still be uncomfortable for a while.

When Willow entered the galley, she found Ray, Martin, and Nate seated around the table closest to the food replicator, discussing something about a saloon. "And the next thing I know," Ray was saying, "I hear this loud gunshot!"

"Oh my god," Nate gasped, looking at Martin, "You got shot?!"

Martin shook his head. "Actually, no, I didn't. I thought I'd been hit, for all of half a second, then the other man fell to the floor. Mister Snart had outdrawn him and shot first. At the time, I was so _appalled_ at how casually he'd killed the man, but if he hadn't, there is no doubt that _I_ would have been the one dead on the floor."

It was then that Ray looked up and spotted Willow. "Hey! Look who's up!"

Willow smiled and – with some help from Nate – made herself a good old-fashioned sandwich before sitting down. "So, what's this about a shooting?" she asked.

"Oh, we were just telling Doctor Heywood some stories about Mister Snart's time with us," Martin explained, "since he and Miss Jiwe weren't on the team at the time."

"Ooh!" Ray cried, "Tell her about the time we had to kidnap him from the hospital!"

Martin's brow furrowed in confusion. "You mean, when the Pilgrim was after us?"

Willow cocked her head. "The Pilgrim? Like, in Salem, or something?"

Ray shook his head. "No. I mean, we did briefly go to the Witch Trials to rescue Sara when she got stuck there, not that she needed as much help."

"Yeah, she was beating a pilgrim with a large stick when we arrived," Nate added, "I was actually there for that one. Actually, that was when I first met her. _Hell_ of a first impression, especially when she turned that stick on _me_."

Ray got the story back on track. "But in this case, the Pilgrim was an assassin who specialized in killing her targets when they were younger, before they even committed the crimes they were being targeted for. She'd even kill them as _babies_."

Martin continued. "Unfortunately, we were acting in defiance of her employers, a corrupt organization known as the Time Masters, and they sent her after us. We wound up having to rescue myself, Jefferson, and Mister Snart as _newborns_ , straight from the hospital, to keep our younger selves out of her clutches."

Ray grinned. "Sara and Kendra – Kendra left the team not long after we lost Snart – were the ones to actually go into the hospital and retrieve him."

"We were listening to the mission over their communicators, and for a while it was all business, but the second Ms. Saunders saw the infant version of Mr. Snart, she started cooing over him incessantly. And when Captain Lance – although she wasn't Captain yet – went to scold her, she took one look at the child and _instantly_ started doing the same!"

"Yeah, she went from 'Kendra, come on! Let's go!' to 'Aww, look at those _cheeks_!'"

Nate shook his head, his mouth open. "Seriously?"

Willow giggled. "So he was a girl magnet, then? Even as a baby?"

Martin shrugged. "Well, in his time with us alone, he managed to charm at least two women – for the sake of the mission, of course."

"I wouldn't say two," Ray grumbled, "Valentina wound up holding him at gunpoint."

But Martin raised one eyebrow. "If I recall correctly, that was only _after_ she found out what he had charmed her _for_."

"He didn't charm her!"

Martin looked up at the ceiling. "Gideon, would you care to settle the argument for us?"

"Certainly," the AI replied (and yep, Willow was still geeking out on the inside), "I believe Mister Snart's first interaction with Doctor Valentina Vostok ended with her inviting him up to her apartment, as well as giving him what Doctor Palmer called 'a steamy goodnight kiss'."

"Charmer," everyone but Ray chorused, causing the scientist to pout childishly.

* * *

"Any change?"

Sara was of course aware that Amaya had entered the Med Bay, yet she still jumped at the other woman's voice. "Uh- no. I mean, Gideon's taken him off the sedatives, but he still hasn't woken up. Did you need anything?"

"Actually, I was about to ask you that. Everyone's had dinner but you. Do you want to get anything to eat?"

Like a bolt from the blue, Sara suddenly realised how hungry she was. But she didn't want to leave…

"Or I could bring you something from the galley?"

"Uh… sure? Mac and Cheese? Gideon knows my preferences."

"You got it."

As the other woman left, Sara never took her eyes off of Leonard's face. She knew he wouldn't be waking up soon, but she just couldn't leave him, feeling that something important would happen while she was gone.

* * *

 **Okay, so not much action here. Len won't be waking up 'til next chapter, sorry!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Look who's back! I know it's been a really long time, but I wanted to get 'The Cold Factor' finished first, so even though I actually finished writing this chapter first, I decided to finish 'The Cold Factor' before posting it. As I mentioned in the Notes for that, I've been pretty distracted. I fell in love with the Wintershock MCU pairing and had that occupying most of my fanfic thoughts for months, then I got an idea for a 'Supergirl' fic that took its place in my head, then back to Marvel, and then 'Game of Thrones' has been occupying that spot for a while.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or any of its characters. It belongs to Mutant Enemy Productions. I also do not own 'The Flash' or 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' or any of their characters. They belong to Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television.**

 **WORD COUNT: 1878 (on MS Word)**

* * *

Just hours after Leonard Snart was brought back from the 'dead', Gideon reported that she was taking him off the sedatives, and that he would be waking up soon. Ray was about to replicate him a full 'Welcome Back to the Land of the Living' dinner, only to be warned that Leonard's stomach might not be up to the task of consuming it all, so he prepared chicken noodle soup, instead.

Since it was unlikely that Snart would be at all pleased at waking up to a roomful of people – many of them strangers – staring at him, it was decided that only Mick and Sara would be in the Med Bay when he regained consciousness. Everyone else left the room, although Sara was ninety-nine percent certain that they were all hiding just out of sight of the doors and listening in.

It was small and subtle, at first. Just a flickering of movement underneath the eyelids. Then there were a few small groans of pain. Then, finally, his eyes fluttered open.

Dazed, blue eyes scanned the room out of habit, spotting Mick first and settling on him. "Mick?" The harsh whisper was followed immediately by coughs from a dry throat. "What-" This time, Leonard cut himself off with a wince as he tried to sit up.

"Take it easy," Sara advised him, making him jump when he realised she was also in the room, "Gideon said it's going to be a while before you're fully healed."

Leonard blinked, clearly confused. Sara didn't blame him. After all, from his perspective, he'd basically been getting blown up by the Oculus one second and waking up in the Med Bay the next. "How…"

"We got some help to bring you back. A witch who was able to combine her magic and the unique qualities of the Vanishing Point to basically put you back together, cell by cell. Yeah, I know, I said 'witch'. We've got a witch on board." She paused, chewed her lip, and moved on to the difficult part. "It's also been about a year since you blew up the Oculus. We had to tell a lot of people that you were dead, because… At the time, you were."

She let him take the time to absorb that. He was going to need it.

* * *

Leonard Snart was positive he was dead. What he could not understand, however, was this strange afterlife he'd landed in. He wasn't exactly one to think about religious philosophy and what came after death, but he sure as hell wasn't expecting waking up in the Med Bay to Mick and Sara telling him he was brought back from the dead by _magic_ , of all things.

Then again, Sara had been, as well.

His entire body ached, which didn't make sense. He should be in either no pain at all or _much_ more pain than that. He continued looking around the room, finding the Med Bay empty except for him and Mick and Sara. And he was covered in a thick, grey blanket, which rubbed somewhat roughly against his skin when he shifted-

Wait. His skin? Was he fucking _naked_ under this thing?!

He never actually said anything about it, but clearly something on his face gave him away. Sara flushed. "Yeah, the spell that was used brought you back, but not your clothes. Don't worry, Mick got the blanket on you before anyone got an eyeful, and we've got a change of clothes ready for you. Do you want to get dressed, or do you want something to eat, first? Ray made soup – well, he pushed a few buttons and Gideon made soup."

Leonard tugged the blanket tighter around himself. "Clothes," he answered, surprised at how terrible his voice sounded. He vaguely recalled screaming a lot, so he guessed that was why his throat felt like sandpaper.

Sara excused herself, and Mick waited until the Med Bay door shut behind her before he reached for the pile of clothes sitting next to the bed.

Leonard was infinitely embarrassed at needing help just to change his clothes, but his whole body felt so damn heavy. Just lifting his arms felt like a huge strain; forget lifting his own ass off the chair to pull on a pair of sweats! He was tired as hell once they finished, but he wasn't going to use that as an excuse to not see anyone. Not that he was a people person, but he had too much pride to say that he was too weak and tired to have visitors.

Besides, he wanted to meet this witch they were talking about.

A lot of people came into the Med Bay once Mick had Gideon open the door. More than had been on the _Waverider_ , the last time Leonard checked. Most of the crew was still there; in addition to Mick and Sara, Jax, Stein, and Raymond led the way into the room. Rip and Kendra were missing, along with whatever version of Carter they'd had on their hands at the time. Cisco Ramon and Barry Allen were a very annoying addition.

And hanging at the back of the group were three women and one man, all unfamiliar. One woman was black, and the others were all white, the man with brown hair and the other two women with blonde and red hair. None of them looked very 'witchy', although the black woman's necklace looked rather unusual.

Eventually, after a seemingly interminable round of well-wishes and 'We missed you's, Sara waved two of the strangers forward. "Leonard, these are the two newest members of the crew. This is Amaya Jiwe and Doctor Nate Heywood. Amaya's a fighter with a bit of magic on top, and Nate's our super-powered history expert."

Great. Another egghead. So, did this mean that Amaya was the witch? If so, why didn't Sara just say 'witch'?

"And _this_ is Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg. They're from Earth-32, and they came here to help us out. Willow is the witch that put you back together, and Buffy is a Vampire Slayer." Leonard was pretty sure he heard capital letters on that last job description. And the whole 'Earth-32' business confused him for a second before he recalled the whole 'multiple Earths' thing Stein once explained to him. Leonard had been pretending to be too busy cleaning his Cold Gun, but he _had_ been paying attention. If identical other-dimensional copies of people were popping in and out of his city, it was something he might need to know about one day. Especially if a doppelgänger of Leonard himself or someone he knew showed up.

Rosenberg, the redhead, waved at him with a friendly little smile. "Hi! Glad to see you up and about!"

Leonard nodded. "I hear I have you to thank for me not being dead. So… thanks."

"Oh, no problem! It was my pleasure! It's _so_ not fair when the good guys wind up being the ones dying."

"Well, I'm not one of the good guys," Leonard pointed out, "But I'll agree with you on the 'unfair' part."

Rosenberg frowned a little. "Aw, don't sell yourself short. After doing something like that, you're definitely one of the heroes!"

It was actually Raymond, of all people, who spoke up before Leonard could. "He, uh, actually doesn't like being called that. Treats it kinda like an insult, really."

That had Rosenberg and her friend – Summers, was it? – looking confused, but none of the others were the least bit surprised, not even the new crew members Leonard had never even met.

"Well, that doesn't change why we're here," Summers continued, "To be honest, we didn't exactly come all the way from our world just to help you, or even just to visit. We came because we need your help."

Ah. Leonard wasn't entirely surprised by this. He was used to good things coming with strings attached, and essentially bringing him back to life was no small favour. So, of course there would be some pretty big strings. "So, what do you expect me to give you in return?"

Summers blinked at his response, but didn't react beyond that. "I'm guessing you've been told about the whole 'doppelgängers and other realities' thing, right?"

Leonard nodded, not sure what the hell that had to do with anything.

"Well, we knew your doppelgänger in our reality. Went to school with him, actually. And he's run afoul of some pretty nasty – well, it's not a problem caused by magic, but we're going to need magic to solve it. And that's where you come in. This is going to sound really weird, but… he's one of four members of our old high school swim team who got turned into some kind of freaky fish monster creature, and we've figured out a way to turn him back. In normal circumstances, all we'd need is a sample of his blood that's untainted by the stuff that transformed him, which a doppelgänger from another reality can provide."

Ahh… That made sense. Although they didn't technically need him, with the Waverider being able to produce a passable copy of his blood – well, unless the magic they needed it for wouldn't accept that? Who knew, when it came to magic? But these two struck him as the hero types, so even if the Gideon-produced stuff was viable, they'd want to help save him, anyway. Hero types were like that. "So, what, you want a quick blood draw, or something?"

Summers winced. "I wish it were that simple. The actual transformation that your doppelgänger kinda involved shedding his skin right off – now, _that's_ a nasty thing to witness – and so if we were to just use the blood, he'd turn back into a skinless human, and obviously die shortly after. _Not_ a pleasant way to go, and definitely not what we want."

Behind her, Rosenberg looked deeply uncomfortable at that last sentence, but didn't say anything.

Leonard was growing suspicious. "So, what else do you want from me?"

Sara put a hand on his arm, drawing his attention to her. "They need you to actually be present for the magical ritual. It won't hurt, or anything; you just have to be there. It's a quick trip to their Earth and back, and if it turns out to be anything more than that, we will have _words_."

The last bit was directed more towards Summers and Rosenberg, and her tone more than suggested that some of those 'words' would actually take the form of her fists, or perhaps one of her knives.

Summers nodded, not seeming intimidated, but not dismissing Sara's warning, either. "It won't be. We've already done the ritual with the other three guys, so we've got it down cold. You don't even have to do much, either. Just stand in the right place and try not to get freaked out when the flashy lights start happening."

Raymond looked like a kid in a candy store. "Ooh, that sounds cool!"

Sara glared at him. "We aren't _all_ going," she told him, "We'll talk about who _is_ going and who's staying later."

Raymond pouted like a child, then visibly brightened. "Well, Snart, you must be starving!" He scampered out of the Med Bay. "I'll go get the chicken noodle soup!"

* * *

 **Now I'm finished writing 'The Cold Factor' (final chapter to be posted on Thursday), and I'm somewhat back in a 'Legends' mindset, I hope to be updating this more regularly. I don't know how long this will be; for this fic, I've just been writing until I reach a certain word count range, and call that the end of the chapter. I know _what_ I'm going to write, in terms of storyline; I just don't know how many words or how many chapters it'll be.**

 **Next chapter, the story will be moving over to Buffy and Willow's Earth, so some more BtVS characters will be appearing shortly. I'll also be featuring references to other TV shows (or other Earths, in-multiverse) that included the actors who played the other three fish boys.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi guys, here's Chapter 6! I'll be taking a break from this to work on Whumptober prompts, but I may make some of them into Buffy fics (as of writing this, I've only decided on two prompts, and one will be made into a 'Legends of Tomorrow' ficlet). Chapter 7 is partially written, and I will be getting back on it once I'm finished writing all my Whumptober stuff.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or any of its characters. It belongs to Mutant Enemy Productions. I also do not own 'The Flash' or 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' or any of their characters. They belong to Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television. References to characters from 'NCIS', 'George & Leo', 'Gotham', and 'A Walk to Remember' are also featured in this chapter, and none of those characters belong to me, either.**

* * *

It took Leonard two days to fully recover from getting blown up and put back together. The _Waverider_ stayed in the Vanishing Point for that period of time, as the eggheads said it was an ideal location to monitor timeline problems, plus there were areas that were still stable enough for them to set the ship down so Jax and some volunteers could do some repair work on the exterior. Then they were back to travelling through the time stream and back to 2017.

By the time the _Waverider_ touched down in the S.T.A.R. Labs parking lot, the Legends and their passengers had finally decided on who was going to Earth-32. Leonard, obviously, and Sara and Mick. Cisco would also be going with them, and the reason why was a surprise to Leonard. Apparently, the geek had gone and developed meta-powers while Leonard had been off time-travelling, or sometime while he was 'in limbo', as some of them were calling it. More specifically, the power to open portals to other Earths (among other tricks). So, he would be coming along to bring them there and back. Rosenberg had a spell that would return her and Summers to their Earth, along with Leonard, since the spell that brought them to Earth-1 in the first place had been keyed to his DNA, but the rest of his crew wouldn't be able to tag along, so they were taking the Cisco Inter-Dimensional Express. Or 'Vibe', as he was now calling himself.

Leonard also got updated on what had been going on in Central City in his absence. Unfortunately, Cisco was the one giving him the run-down, and he babbled very quickly and left no pauses in which Leonard could stop and ask for clarification. All he could catch was something about a 'Metapocalypse', an alternate timeline, Barry having a homicidal evil clone from the future, an alien invasion, and… something to do with a mind-whammying, power-stealing, music man? What the hell was that?

Sara also gave him a far more concise and comprehensible summary of their team's experiences. She outlined Vandal Savage's defeat, their issue with the nuke, Rip's disappearance, recruiting the newbies, the hunt for some amulets that led to a magic weapon of biblical origin, the supervillain dream team hunting it as well, Rip's brainwashing and betrayal and un-brainwashing (although Sara seemed to skip over _something_ there), and the completely _insane_ plan of breaking the number-one rule of time-travel to fix everything. Said insane plan had actually _worked_ , and so far, there hadn't seemed to be any negative consequences, but they were still holding their breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one.

Now that Leonard was all caught up on what was going on in his own world, it was now time for him to head to another.

"Okay, all aboard for Earth-32!" Cisco declared happily to the assembled group in a room that the Flash's little crew had apparently set aside _specifically_ for inter-dimensional travel, "Please remember to keep your arms and legs inside the breach at all times, but otherwise, just enjoy the ride!"

Leonard rolled his eyes, and so did Mick next to him, but no one else in their group did. Sara and Summers just looked mildly amused, while Barry – who was also coming – outright grinned, and Rosenberg looked…

Well, she looked a bit like Raymond or the Professor, when they were presented with some new marvel of science. Wide-eyed and ready to rattle off a million questions. She was actually bouncing on the balls of her feet, which may have been the actual source of Summers's amusement. Leonard had enough experience with the science types being rather dismissive of the very concept of magic, but this woman didn't seem to follow that mold.

"Are we gonna be standing here listenin' to you yakkin' all day?" Mick grumbled, taking a bite out of a sandwich he'd made before leaving the _Waverider_ , "Or are we gonna actually go somewhere? I could be watchin' a football game right now."

Leonard expected Cisco to be nervous around Mick, but apparently working together dealing with that alien invasion had cured him of that. "Dude, isn't this your first trip to another Earth? Where's the excitement, bro?"

Mick just grunted and took another bite.

"Okay, whatever. Let's get this party started! Ladies?"

Summers and Rosenberg were going to travel back to their designated return spot using Rosenberg's spell, both to carry a transmitter that would give Cisco precise coordinates and to warn their friends about the incoming party (as there was a good chance that they would shoot first, ask questions later).

Rosenberg nodded, and she and Summers turned to face each other and joined hands. Rosenberg closed her eyes and started to speak in some language that Leonard couldn't even identify, and the air in the room began to swirl around them, whipping their long hair around but barely registering as a breeze to anyone else present. Then there was a bright flash of light, and when Leonard blinked the spots out of his eyes, the two women were gone.

"Wow," Barry commented, "So that's magic."

"You've already seen her bring a guy back to life, yet _that's_ what throws you?" Sara asked, one eyebrow raised.

Barry shrugged.

Cisco consulted some kind of gauntlet on his wrist. "Okay, I'm locked on! Earth-32, here we come!"

He made some odd motion, like punching through air, and all of a sudden, a swirling, blue… something appeared in front of the group. It looked like an odd combination of roiled liquid and gas, forming a… portal of some sort. It was the only word Leonard could think of to describe it.

Barry and Cisco didn't even blink at its appearance. Magic was new to them, but apparently this wasn't. "After you," Cisco invited the others, making a sweeping gesture with his arms.

Leonard felt his eyebrows go up, but he wasn't about to show any form of hesitation. Squaring his shoulders, he stepped forward and through the portal.

* * *

Rupert Giles was prepared to see Buffy and Willow when the teleport alarm sounded. He was disappointed to see that the two of them were alone. But he was dumbfounded to see a swirling, blue portal opening up in the empty space they'd reserved for magical and/or otherworldly entry and disgorge five people. He reached for a cattle prod sitting on a nearby table (used to handle the rather uncooperative fish/man monstrosities), but Buffy waved for him to set it down. "It's alright," she insisted, "They're with us. They decided to take their own mode of transportation."

Rupert blinked, and recognised the man at the head of the group as an older version of Gage Petronzi. "Ah. I see." He put down the cattle prod and extended his hand, instead. "How do you do, Mister Petronzi?"

Petronzi looked at him in confusion. "Who?"

"Uh, your doppelgänger had a different name than you," Willow explained to him, "Gage Petronzi."

Buffy stepped closer. "Giles, this is Leonard Snart and his friends, Captain Sara Lance, Mick Rory, Barry Allen, and Cisco Ramon-"

"Those last two aren't my friends," Mr. Snart interrupted.

"Aw, c'mon, man, you know you love us," one of the younger men said with a grin that faded when Mr. Snart turned around to glare at him.

"Ah. Well then, I'm glad you all could make it. My name is Rupert Giles, and I am the Director of the New Watcher's and Slayer's Council." He noted the blank or confused expressions amongst the group. "Er… That means that I run the demon-hunting organisation that these two work for."

"He's _one_ of the people running it," Buffy reminded everyone with a smile, "He heads the Watchers, I head the Slayers, and Willow's one of the higher-ranking Witches."

Indeed, Willow had been more than happy to let one of the witches in the Devon Coven to represent the Witches on the Council's new Board of Directors. She was extremely powerful, but still quite inexperienced, and her previous magical addiction and the whole 'Dark Willow' episode counted against her in some eyes, as well. So, Gwendoline Harkness had agreed to fill the role.

"Well. Either way, thank you for coming, Mister Snart. I promise that this will not take too long, and then you can be on your way. However, I should warn you that it won't be a very pleasant experience. Ah, this way, please."

He led the five strangers to the room they had set up for the ritual, passively listening to Willow and Buffy babbling about the reality these five had come from, and how they had been on a flying time machine and Willow had used the Beannú Airmed Ritual – successfully – on a human being who had apparently been dead for a year. He wasn't entirely certain how much of their tale was truth and how much was a result of an interdimensional equivalent to jet-lag.

It was a fairly simple setup. The ritual circle was already drawn out in powdered sulphur, the appropriate spellbooks were sitting open to the required pages on a side table, and Gwendoline was sitting at the ready, her wrinkled hands resting elegantly on her polished mahogany cane. Also on said table was an intricately shaped knife bearing a pale green gem in the handle – a gem that was actually made of the crystallised sap – amber, really – of a tree exclusively native to Pylea. It was the ritual blade that they would be using today.

Rupert was unfamiliar with the personalities of the four swim team members who were transformed. He knew that Dodd had been a bully, Cameron had liked to play 'nice guy' but was quick to accuse any girl who didn't take the bait so quickly as being a tease when they rebuffed his advances, and he knew absolutely nothing about Sean. What he had heard from Buffy and Xander about Gage had painted a picture of a somewhat rude and arrogant lad – though well within the normal levels of such traits within his age group – who could be far more reasonable when convinced that his life was in danger.

Mr. Snart, in the scant minute that Rupert had known him, seemed to be a rather prickly and closed-off person, and quick to display contempt and annoyance towards certain personality traits, such as Mr. Ramon's excitability and rapid-fire questions about Willow's magical method of inter-dimensional transport. Although Mr. Snart hadn't offered any commentary of his own, his feelings on the display of what Buffy might call 'geekery' were made obvious through numerous huffs and eye rolls. Oddly, Rupert could easily see Spike behaving in much the same manner, although the vampire would likely have lost his patience by the time they reached the ritual chamber, and Mr. Snart was still at the stage of quiet annoyance.

The other doppelgängers had had various differences in personality. The other version of Dodd had practically fainted upon the completion of the ritual (clearly, this was more magical mayhem than the grocery store bag boy was accustomed to dealing with). The other Cameron, who instead went by the name of Patrick Barnett, was made of far sterner stuff, being a helicopter pilot in the United States Marine Corps. And they had actually met two of Shane's counterparts, who each had a different name: Eduardo Dorrance, who had proven to be too much of a handful to be worth the trouble, and Landon Carter. Dr. Carter's response to these events had been somewhere in between those of Dodd and Capt. Barnett.

Rupert wondered how Mr. Snart would react to what they were about to do. This didn't seem to be his first experience with things considered out of the ordinary for most people, but then, there _was_ a 'weirdness level limit' that existed within everyone. Who knew how close this ritual would be to his?

* * *

 **All references to the other swim team members' doppelg** **ängers are based on the actors' other roles. Of all the fandoms listed below, I am really only familiar with 'NCIS', 'CSI: Miami', and 'Gotham' (although I honestly stopped watching the latter after Season 1). So, if the other shows' corresponding characters are dead, then oh well.**

 **Dodd's actor Jake Patellis didn't appear in any other show/movie I've seen, but on IMDb he's credited as either 'Bag Boy' or 'Grocerystore Bag Boy' on a late-nineties TV show called 'George & Leo'. Since there was no name attached, that is why he's the only doppelg** **änger with the same name as his Buffyverse counterpart. As I have never watched this show, I honestly know absolutely nothing about the character's personality.**

 **Cameron's actor Jeremy Garrett played Capt. Patrick Barnett on 'NCIS' 2x03 'Vanished' (the episode that opens with the helicopter in the crop circle). Barnett was one of the two missing pilots, and the one who turned out to be less important to the plot than the other one. He's also credited in a first-season episode of 'CSI: Miami', but the character name and episode title ring no bells for me. For all I know, he's the dead guy.**

 **Sean's actor Shane West has been in a few things I've at least heard of. He starred in 'A Walk to Remember' with Mandy Moore, and appeared in many episodes of 'ER', 'Nikita', and 'Salem'. I watched 'A Walk to Remember' once, over a decade ago, and only because all the other girls at the sleepover wanted to (romance movies aren't really my thing), but I've never watched those shows. So 'A Walk to Remember' was originally the only reference I was going to make, but of course, given his more recent turn as Bane on 'Gotham', I couldn't resist including that, too.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Guess who's back! I'm sorry I took so long; I just got really stuck on this chapter! Even though I was trying to binge-watch this season's Arrowverse shows before the Crisis finale (didn't really succeed at that, either), I just couldn't get into the mindset for it for a long time.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or any of its characters. It belongs to Mutant Enemy Productions. I also do not own 'The Flash' or 'DC's Legends of Tomorrow' or any of their characters. They belong to Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television.**

 **WORD COUNT: 1926**

* * *

So far, so good. Their trip to Earth-32 was starting out relatively… normal. You know, for a trip to an alternate dimension. The grey-haired Brit waiting to meet them had been perfectly polite, and had led them through the halls of what actually looked like an ordinary office building, until they got to another room designated for their magic ritual.

The normality levels started dropping rapidly the moment they entered. Leonard noted that while the walls of the hallways behind him, and the room they'd originally arrived in, appeared to have been constructed of regular drywall, the walls of this room were unquestionably wrought from huge blocks of grey stone. The floors and ceiling, too. And there didn't appear to be any electric lighting in here, as the large space was illuminated entirely by torches lining the walls.

In other words, if Leonard hadn't just walked from one space to another, he would have assumed that this room was part of a different building entirely.

The contents of the room were also very interesting, in a 'ripped straight out of Hollywood' way. Weird circle with a lot of symbols drawn on the floor? Check. Ancient tomes set to the side? Check. Wicked-looking, ornate knife? Check.

(Leonard may have actually wondered what kind of gem was embedded in the handle of the knife, and how much he might get off it on his Earth.)

And let's not forget the only occupant of the room prior to their entry. Some white-haired lady was sitting in a chair next to the table holding the books and the knife. She was clearly old, bent-over, and wrinkled, but Leonard had enough interpersonal observational skills to recognise that she was no frail old biddy. Determining what she actually _was_ , though, would require further observation.

"Got the last one, Mrs. Harkness," Rosenberg announced as she breezed past Leonard and walked over to greet the old woman.

Mrs. Harkness smiled and nodded at the younger woman, and then her gaze shot straight over to Leonard with disturbing clarity. He felt like he was being X-rayed from halfway across the room.

Rosenberg smiled and turned to the rest of the group. "Everyone, this is Gwendoline Harkness, the head Witch of the Council. She's going to be working the spell with me. I mean, not to brag, but I could probably do the ritual on my own, but only when I'm at my best, and I've been popping all throughout different realities, and we've already done this ritual three times in the past month, so my power level is kinda at its not quite best, you know? So, Mrs. Harkness will be adding her own not inconsiderable power today. It doesn't help that some of the realities we've been to turned out to be dead ends, like the one where the guy we were aiming to recruit had gone all terrorist on this city that'd been through some _really_ rough times already, or the one where we couldn't actually _find_ any of the doppelgängers we were looking for, but ran into a doppelgänger of an old friend of ours, only she got turned into a human several years earlier than ours did and got adopted by a nice family and became an FBI agent-"

"It's official, Ramon," Leonard interrupted her, "This woman babbles more than you _or_ Raymond."

"She does give Felicity a run for her money," Sara observed, a somewhat fond smirk on her face, "I'd _love_ to get the two of them into a room together."

"You wouldn't dare."

Sara shot him a devious look that boded ill for his sanity in the somewhat near future.

Giles coughed quietly. "Well. Shall we get started, then?" He crossed the room to another set of double doors opposite the ones they came through. He tugged one open – Leonard half expected a creak straight out of a cheesy horror film – and slipped through it without letting anyone see what lay beyond it besides a sliver of darkness.

Leonard turned his attention back to Rosenberg and Harkness. "So, what do _I_ do?"

"You stand there." Rosenberg pointed at the magic circle. "Between the red _beith_ and the blue _dair_."

What? He stared at her, confused.

"The _beith_ looks like a capital T, and the _dair_ is more like an upside-down T with two vertical lines." That description was a bit more helpful, and Leonard made his way over to the circle, while Rosenberg took her own position in the blank centre space. "Okay, now we just need Gage."

They heard Gage coming long before they saw him. More specifically, they heard some kind of growling or snarling noise, accompanied by raised male voices.

The double doors opened again, this time far more violently than the last. And the reason for that violence became readily apparent pretty much right away.

Because the doors hadn't been _pushed_ open so much as they'd given way when a dark-haired man had been _thrown_ through them. He skidded and rolled and got to his feet, brandishing a thin club of some sort at the person who'd thrown him.

Well, to use the words 'person' and 'who' would be exceedingly generous, because yeah, now he understood what Summers and Rosenberg meant when they referred to 'some kind of freaky fish monster creature'. Very 'Creature from the Black Lagoon', although in Leonard's opinion, it was more reptilian than it was fishy, albeit with some catfish-like whiskers.

Regardless of what to call it, the thing was damn strong, as it lunged forward and grabbed the dark-haired man by the throat, as the man in question lunged with his club, electricity sparking off the end of the weapon.

"XANDER!" Rosenberg cried, stepping forward. It didn't matter, though, because there was a red blur and a flash of yellow lightning, and the monster was crashing against the wall to Leonard's left.

Summers darted forward, punched the dazed monster in the face, and then started dragging it towards the circle, aided by Giles, who had also emerged from the doorway with a brand-new split lip.

"Well, that was fun," Summers commented breezily, before noticing the older man's face, "Oh, God, Giles! Are you okay?"

"Well, I managed to not get knocked unconscious this time," Giles answered drily as they dumped the monster into the centre of the circle, "So, I would say that I'm actually doing quite well, comparatively speaking." He then turned to Barry, "Thank you for your assistance, Mister Allen."

Barry smiled at him, not at all bothered by the presence of an apparent fish demon when he faced metahumans on a weekly basis. "No thanks needed, Sir."

"Well, shall we get started? I, for one, will be glad to have this all behind us."

The other man, 'Xander', rubbed his neck with one hand while adjusting the black patch over his left eye, "Yeah, I'm not up for another game of 'Smack the Watcher Around'. I mean, c'mon, Gage, we were sorta friends!"

"You were on the swim team with him for less than a week," Summers pointed out, "He didn't even know you _existed_ before then."

Xander pouted, reminding Leonard of Raymond, just a bit. "You know, that doesn't actually make me feel any better, Buff."

"Mister Giles is correct." Leonard turned around, seeing the elderly witch, Mrs. Harkness, getting to her feet. Her voice was strong and clear, with none of the shakiness that had crept into his grandfather's in his final years. "We must begin before Mister Petronzi awakens, or we shall have to wrangle him all over again."

"Yeah, I've had enough of that this week," Xander agreed, still rubbing his neck.

That was everyone's cue to finally get into position as Rosenberg gave Leonard the basic rundown of what the ritual would entail. It turned out that her previous claim that it wouldn't hurt wasn't entirely true, but that the hurt would be very short-lived and taken care of by the time they went home. Per her instructions, Leonard stayed where he was, but Rosenberg and Harkness took positions standing next to each other, across the circle from him and with the Gage-monster in the centre of the circle, which was void of any designs. Everyone else stood in different positions around the room well outside the circle. Summers found some extra shock batons for herself, Sara, and Mick, while both Barry and Cisco declined, saying that their own powers would suffice (which had Leonard curious, as while he had already known before his earlier display that Barry could more than hold his own against the monster, he hadn't been aware of Cisco having any combat-applicable abilities).

Rosenberg and Harkness joined hands and began chanting, the latter clutching the gem-handled knife in her free hand. The white chalk design on the floor actually started _glowing_ a pale, blue-white light, and the coloured symbols shimmered even more brightly. Leonard kept a lid on his reaction to how _weird_ this all was, but couldn't quite hide the little jump he made when Gage suddenly twitched and growled.

After about thirty seconds of chanting, Rosenberg came around one side of the circle to Leonard until she was standing at his left, holding the knife after Harkness passed it to her. Remembering that this was all part of why he came there, and that it wouldn't hurt for long, Leonard let her carve a narrow line through the palm of his left hand. Blood dripping from the blade, she slowly walked clockwise around the circle until she was back at his right, making sure the red droplets landed within the intricate designs on the floor.

The light from the chalk designs faded, except for the ones closest to Gage, which were getting brighter by the second. At Rosenberg's nod, Leonard followed her earlier instructions and cautiously placed a hand on the nearest part of Gage that he could reach – a shoulder. Gage was _definitely_ moving now, but it was more like the shaking of someone having a violent seizure.

The light was now completely restricted to the inner boundary of the circle, and it was shining to the point of blinding anyone who looked at it for too long.

Gage let out an almost-human sounding scream of what was certainly pain, and suddenly Rosenberg grabbed Leonard by the shoulders and yanked, _hard_.

Leonard caught his balance and shot as brief glare at her, but his attention was quickly brought back to the still-screaming creature on the floor in front of him. His skin seemed to be changing into, well, actual human _skin_ , starting from the shoulder Leonard had been touching and spreading outward to the rest of his body. And that wasn't the only change. The long claws on the ends of his fingers were retreating back inward, and the odd, bumpy shape of his head was shifting back into that of a regular human head.

A sudden motion out of the corner of his eye alerted him to Xander, who was approaching with a thick blanket. The light from the chalk on the floor was swiftly dying down, and Xander threw it over Gage as soon as it was gone, as smoothly as if he'd done it a thousand times before (well, three would be more accurate).

Rosenberg swayed beside him, and Leonard suddenly found himself grabbing her by the upper arms as her knees buckled. "We did it," she breathed, sounding deliriously relieved, "We finally restored all four of them."

Then her eyes rolled back into her head, and she went completely limp.

* * *

 **The world where Anya became human earlier and joined the FBI is actually Earth-38. Her actress Emma Caulfield, who played Anya on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', played FBI Agent Cameron Chase in 'Supergirl' 1x10 'Childish Things'.**

 **Just to be clear, the ritual does not turn _all_ ex-humans back into humans. There are limits; the fish boys were transformed as a result of science, not magic, so that is a factor. It's unlikely that it will work on a Vengeance Demon, and that's just assuming you can get the demon to co-operate. Plus, the show has already proven that you can turn a Vengeance Demon back into a human by smashing their amulet, as what happened with Anya, so if you can get your hands on it more easily, then there's no need to bother with a ritual. It also does not work on werewolves. It is unknown if it will work on vampires, but even if it did, it would most likely just turn the vampire back into a dead human body, and even if it brought them back as a living human, there's still the lack of soul to consider. And, again, the co-operation issue. So, it's not really worth the effort.**


End file.
